Fab News

BANNOCKBURN, IL – The IPC 4-11 plating subcommittee is working on an organic solderability preservative specification to be titled IPC-4555. The testing of various OSP finishes is currently in process.

The completed document is scheduled for publication and distribution at 2009’s IPC Printed Circuits Expo, APEX and the Designers Summit in Las Vegas, NV.

The IPC 4-11 plating subcommittee has previously released the IPC-4552, IPC-4553 and IPC-4554 standards, which set specifications for electroless nickel immersion gold, immersion silver and immersion tin surface finishes (respectively).

The documents are intended to specify methods to obtain the best solderable and reliable surface finishes, and are intended for use by chemical suppliers, PCB fabrication houses, electronic manufacturing services and OEMs.

TAIWAN – Copper clad laminate (CCL) maker Iteq reported total revenue of $44 million (converted from TWD) in May, posting 25.6% year-on-year growth, a record high for 2008.

Industry reports cite the company's increased manufacturing capacity at its Wuxi plant, creation of the JV between between Iteq and Laird for the manufacture of LED heat conductive material, and the start up of production at the company's FCCL plant in Guangzhou, China as the sources of the increased revenue.

SHENZHEN, CHINA - Han's Laser has announced that Apple Computer has ordered $7.54 million worth of PCB laser equipment from its Shenzhen subsidiary.

Partial equipment shipments will be paid by installment, and the full transaction is expected to be completed by August 31.
GLEN ARM, MD - Armistead Technologies specializes in the manufacturing of reverse engineered printed circuit boards (PCBs), with the capability to integrate additional features and updated components into fabricated boards to extend the lifecycle of a product.

Over the past 19 years, John Armistead says he has seen many changes. "Technology has actually made things harder," he says. "Some chips now have software on-board, and from a reverse engineering standpoint it's very difficult to extract that software from the chip."

"With today's complex circuit boards, it's a lot more cost-effective for an engineering manager to outsource the job of reverse engineering a PCB to us rather than take one of his engineers off projects," Armistead says. "And, because we're reverse engineering specialists, we can get the job done a lot quicker, too."

Armistead says he looks forward to many more years of serving the electronics industry with innovative, accurate reverse engineering services. "Whenever anyone needs a U.S.-based firm to handle a PCB reverse engineering project," Armistead says, "we'll be here."
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN -- With legal action pending, the Swedish government lifted its national ban on the use of the flame retardant Deca-BDE in textiles, furniture and some electronic cables. The Swedish government ban was inconsistent with the latest findings of a 10-year EU risk assessment of Deca-BDE. The 10-year risk assessment failed to identify any significant risks to justify restrictions on the flame retardant. The Swedish government’s limited ban went into effect in late 2006 and had no scientific basis and was therefore subject to a legal challenge by EU authorities.

"The EU has established that Deca-BDE is safe for continued use in all its applications, so there is no scientific basis whatsoever for any national or EU-wide restriction on Deca-BDE" said Veronique Steukers, chair of the European Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Panel (EBFRIP). The "EBFRIP firmly believes that Deca-BDE meets the criteria for an exemption from RoHS and that it should therefore either be exempted or deleted from the RoHS Directive. We are working with the European Commission to ensure that this restriction is lifted."

The Swedish Government's press release can be found at: http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/10626/a/104665.
RICHARDSON, TX - Titan Global Holdings has announced that Titan PCB East Inc., a company subsidiary, has reached a definitive agreement with a management led buy-out team Time Sensitive Circuits (TSC) to acquire all of the assets of Titan PCB East.

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